Ageing, Cognition and Dementia in Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples: A Life Cycle Approach

Abstract

Dementia is emerging as a global phenomenon, although it is predominantly defined in the literature as a, ‘Western diagnostic category’. There is general acceptance that ‘Culture’, namely, values, practices and beliefs, play an important role in understanding dementia, from uncovering risk factors for the disease, in particular, the interplay of environmental and genetic factors (Burchard, Ziv et al. 2003), to influencing what has been described as, “help-seeking behaviours”, across different populations (Dilworth-Anderson and Gibson 2002). In Aboriginal communities, both in Australia and other comparative societies, what we know about the nature and extent of dementia, and of its sub-types, is still in its infancy, as is knowledge about the experiences, perceptions and meaning of dementia for Aboriginal people, the causes of, and risk factors for cognitive decline, and the need for and provision of dementia services (Pollitt 1997; Jervis and Manson 2002; LoGiudice, Smith et al. 2006). This Report is a review of the literature to-date on dementia in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. We reviewed the research in comparable Indigenous communities internationally as well as dementia research in non-Indigenous populations, both nationally and internationally, to illuminate cognitive development, growth and decline across the life-cycle and its application to the ‘brain health’ of Indigenous Australians. The Review was conducted over a three year period between late 2006 and 2009